


Empty

by Pastel_Teacups



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Eating Disorders, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 10:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6047821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pastel_Teacups/pseuds/Pastel_Teacups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It’s part of being a Jedi, he forces himself to believe as he walks past the meal hall and ignores the empty twist in his stomach for the first day. </i>
</p><p><i>Discipline. Self-control. </i><br/>--<br/>Or, an AU in which Obi-Wan has an eating disorder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty

It’s part of being a Jedi, he forces himself to believe as he walks past the meal hall and ignores the empty twist in his stomach for the first day. 

Discipline. Self-control. 

Slowly, he grows thin, more agile as days fly by like winds. 

He still isn’t happy when his robes seem to drown him and he is forced to go looking for smaller ones. He still isn’t happy when his skin clings to his bones and he can count the vertebrae in his spine. 

Nobody notices, he doesn’t think. That is, until Qui-Gon does. 

It’s subtle, at first. Obi-Wan is so busy that he can hide behind the guise of helping others, behind training and meditating. But it only gets more severe. 

And of course, when Qui-Gon sets a plate of food in front of him and his student pushes it away with a shake of his head and a dismissive wave of his hand, Qui-Gon sets a firm hand on his shoulder and his own stomach churns at the bones he can feel even through his Padawan’s thick robes. 

“Obi-Wan.” His voice is quiet but firm, looking into his student’s eyes evenly. “Please. Eat.” 

He wants to protest, but he cannot. He only stares at the food like it’s his enemy before taking a careful bite. 

Qui-Gon isn’t satisfied until the plate is near-empty. 

Later, at night in the anti-privacy of their shared bathroom, Obi-Wan leans over the toilet bowl with tears flowing from his eyes as he forces the offending food out of him. 

In the bedroom not a few yards away, Qui-Gon lays awake and wonders what can be done to save his Padawan before this sickness destroys him. 

\----

Nothing is done, and Qui-Gon is dead. 

Obi-Wan is a Jedi now. Qui-Gon is dead and seems to wrap around him coldly when he tries to sleep, whispering their sins in his ear in a sad mockery of the way Qui-Gon had wrapped around him in life. 

But that time is long gone. He’s grown smaller, thinner, would barely take up his side of the bed even if Qui-Gon was alive to join him. 

A student, too. He has a student now, a whispered promise as he’d held Qui-Gon’s withering body in his weak arms. 

_“Promise me you’ll train the boy,”_ he’d whispered, bringing his face up to trace across Obi-Wan’s too-thin jaw. 

_Promise me you’ll get better,”_ he’d hadn’t murmured, though he’d desperately wanted to. Instead he just communicated desperate apologies over their cracking and shattering bond, apologies that didn’t need saying because it wasn’t either of their faults. 

And then, the bond was severed. 

Obi-Wan’s head doesn’t stop aching, even when he sleeps. 

He takes to swallowing water like it’s air. He trains Anakin with all the sternness Qui-Gon taught him with, but is far more sparse with his bouts of affection. 

Affection leads to worry, and worry leads to the dark side. 

He collapses once, when Anakin is fifteen, but it only lasts a minute and then he’s up again, waving off the boy’s worried gaze. 

He is slipping, beginning to care for the boy. He catches himself when Anakin smiles crookedly, when his eyes glisten with victory in a successful sparring. He is weak, still. 

Rather than eating every few days, like before, he stops eating altogether. 

He drops even more weight. It gets so transparent that Master Yoda corners him one afternoon in the meditation room, looking him over with suspicion. 

“Unwell you look, Master Obi-Wan.” 

The man smiles, ignoring the pull of his skin and the way it doesn’t feel like his own. “You worry too much, Master Yoda. I feel fine.” 

Master Yoda looks at him with eyes that clearly don’t believe his words. “Somebody’s teacher, you now are. A good influence, you must be.” 

He resists the urge to slump his shoulders with the heavy weight of potential failure, blinking the darkness from his eyes. He’s been standing for too long. “I am trying, Master Yoda.” 

The Council member doesn’t say any more, just gives Obi-Wan a knowing look before stepping out and leaving him alone. 

Unwillingly, he slips to the floor and stays there, catching his breath and pushing thin, thin fingers through his hair. 

He works harder. Hides better. 

He sits in the meal hall with Anakin and takes little bites of food while the younger eats, and waits until the boy is sleeping to near-silently heave the food he’s eaten back up. 

Anakin gets older, and smarter, but he lacks the subtlety needed to properly approach an issue. However, that doesn’t stop him.

“You don’t eat, do you?” He asks bluntly one night before he sleeps, Obi-Wan waiting in silence for his student’s eyes to close. “You never eat. Why?” 

He stiffens beneath his covers, that seem to do nothing to warm his thin, malnourished body. “Of course I eat, you’re just too wrapped up in yourself to notice. Go to bed, Anakin.” 

Anakin sits up, blue eyes burning through the dark and into Obi-Wan’s skull. “No, you don’t. I’ve been watching you for weeks, months even. You just don’t eat.” 

Obi-Wan swallows dryly. Even water sits in his stomach and makes him feel weaker than he does when it’s empty. He only drinks as much as he needs to survive, now. “Go to sleep, Anakin. You’re acting like a child.” 

The Padawan continues to pry, but after no response from his Master he rolls over with a huff and closes his eyes. He waits until he’s certain that Anakin’s breathing has evened out before he creeps off to the bathroom. 

The next morning, Anakin sets down a large plate of food in front of his Master and crosses his arms over his chest. “Eat.” 

Obi-Wan doesn’t give a single indication of discomfort as he eats almost all of what Anakin has brought him. If he doesn’t, Anakin will confront him once more, and he isn’t sure how well he can bear it in the light of day. He makes casual conversation, even, and then they part for Anakin’s lessons with the boy looking more than a little surprised. 

He barely reaches the bathroom before he dissolves into tears, breath short and hands shaking as they find the edges of the toilet and grip it tightly as he heaves into it. 

When he’s finally finished, tears ticking to his cheeks, he thinks he’s alone. 

He isn’t. 

_“Oh, Obi-Wan,”_ Anakin breathes from behind him, voice filled with pain and grief for his Master’s state. 

He hasn’t allowed tears to slip down his cheeks like this since before Qui-Gon’s death. 

Anakin reaches out and sets a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder, suppressing a soft gasp at how _thin_ he feels, how the bones feel ready to snap beneath his fingers. 

Obi-Wan closes his eyes, and wonders when Anakin grew up so much. 

His student joins him on the ground and tugs Obi-Wan to his chest, wrapping his arms around his thin shoulders and rocking him gently, and Obi-Wan can’t stop the tears that fall down his cheeks and onto his Padawan’s robes. 

“Why, Obi-Wan?” Anakin whispers when the older man’s sobs descend into quiet hiccups, pushing his fingers through his Master’s hair gently, carefully, like Obi-Wan is a wild animal that will bolt at the first sign of trouble. “Why would you do this to yourself?” 

He doesn’t know what to say. No words would live up to what Anakin is expecting. 

Slowly he tugs himself out of Anakin’s arms, feeling cold, and drags himself to his feet. 

“Wait, Obi-Wan, I-” 

On shaky legs, he makes his way out of their room and takes uneasy steps down the hall. He hears Anakin calling after him, but his voice fades away when Obi-Wan ducks into the meditation room and lets the door slide shut behind him. 

Suddenly, it’s as if all the air in the room has been sucked away. His chest heaves, and he sinks against the wall and to the ground with a soft, barely-there thud. 

The room, thankfully, is empty. But Obi-Wan only curls into the smallest, darkest corner of it, thin knees to thin chest as he tries to return his breathing to something that possible resembled normal. 

He isn’t sure how long he sits there, but tears dry slowly on his cheeks and he doesn’t return to his and Anakin’s room. Miraculously, he goes undisturbed for the night. 

\----

The next morning, the plate Anakin sets down in front of him is much smaller. The young Padawan sits down heavily across from him. 

“I figure - large portions probably bother you.” He says nervously, glancing up at Obi-Wan as if he expects to be walked away from again. “Please, Master. Just a little.” 

Obi-Wan’s hand shakes, but he forces himself to take a tentative bite of food. He takes a few more bites, too, before setting down his fork egregiously. He glances at the time, then back at his student with knit brows. “You’re supposed to be in lessons now, are you not?” 

“I’ve been excused,” Anakin says. “I asked Master Yoda. He didn’t ask very many questions.” 

Obi-Wan swallows dryly. His throat feels like it’s coated in sand. “Very well, then.” 

\----

Anakin follows him everywhere. 

He isn’t particularly disruptive, but he’s constantly at the Jedi’s side. He meditates beside Obi-Wan, and catches him before he can sneak away. 

The same goes for lunch, and dinner. Small portions, but not small enough. 

Obi-Wan’s stomach churns in disgust for himself, but Anakin doesn’t offer him a free moment to act on his haunting impulses. 

They spar, and Anakin knocks him down in moments. Rather than looking triumphant, though, he just looks worried. 

Anakin doesn’t sleep, either. He sits up in bed and reads beside Obi-Wan, determination alone keeping his eyes open. 

Silent tears slip down Obi-Wan’s cheeks, his back to Anakin as he too lays awake, not by choice but by self-hatred. He wipes them away hastily, chastising himself for even allowing them to fall. 

The sun rises before either of their eyes close. 

\----

At breakfast, the story is the same. And lunch. And dinner. Anakin forces some water into him, as well. 

This night, however, Anakin hears his choked, small sobs. 

He lays with Obi-Wan and pulls tight arms around a too-thin frame, brushes fingers through his hair and rubs soothing circles along his back, careful to avoid the bumps of vertebrae that protrude so thoroughly. 

Eventually, finally, Obi-Wan sleeps. Anakin doesn’t, terrified that his eyes will close and his Master will slip from his grip. 

\----

It goes on for nearly two more years like this, and it does get better. Eventually Obi-Wan can eat a normally portioned meal, and Anakin learns to rouse at even the slightest shift of the bed, which they now share without having ever discussed it. Obi-Wan is nearly of a healthy weight, though every lingering look in the mirror is a danger to his health and both Jedi know it. Anakin has been officially Knighted, and he smiles brightly enough at the ceremony to make Obi-Wan consider the notion that he isn’t a complete failure. 

He knows that Anakin specifically requests to be put on missions with Obi-Wan, and he knows that Yoda approves these requests compulsively. Nobody mentions it. 

Even Obi-Wan smiles, now. It seems easy, like there was never a reason. 

\----

 

Then, Anakin leaves, and it’s as if the rope to recovery has been cut and Obi-Wan is falling. 

Sometime between their fight on Mustafar and the next morning, Obi-Wan finds himself leaning over a toilet bowl heavily, as if trying to make up for the years he hadn’t been there.

There’s no transition. The next day, he eats nothing. Yoda looks aggrieved, looks like he knows, but it doesn’t matter. There are more important issues, more pressing issues, and there is no time to ask. 

Luke has his father’s bright, curious eyes, and as Obi-Wan holds him in thin arms he wonders where this will end, if he will be alive to see it. 

He half expects Anakin to appear in his modest kitchen, a plate of food in his hand and a determined look on his face. 

When he does, Obi-Wan resolves, he will eat again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Comments + Kudos are greatly appreciated, as always! I also have a [Tumblr](http://little-floral.tumblr.com/) if you'd like to come and say hello there!


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